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Rethinking the Reuse of Electronic Resources: Contexts, Power and Information Literacy. Commentary by Martin Oliver on Littlejohn, A. (2003) Reusing Online Resources, Chapter 16: Identifying the Complexity of Factors in the Sharing and Reuse of Resources, by Carmel McNaught

Author:

Martin Oliver

Abstract

Abstract: This paper is a response to Chapter 16 by McNaught (2003) and Chapter 18 by Littlejohn (2003a), from 'Reusing Online Resources: a sustainable approach to e-learning' (Littlejohn, 2003b). These two chapters are briefly summarised, and the points that each makes are examined and challenged. Following on from this, the proposals within these two chapters are re-framed in terms of issues of information literacy and the exercise of power. This analysis suggests that, whilst these chapters may make an important contribution to understanding the process of reuse, they neglect issues relating to scholarship, wisdom and personal development; they also hide the ways in which reuse may serve to strengthen the position of learning technologists whilst marginalising academics.

Chapter
16: Identifying the Complexity of Factors in the Sharing and Reuse
of Resources

Education & Professional
Development
University College London
1-19 Torrington Place
London, WC1E 6BT
UKmartin.oliver@ucl.ac.uk

Summary

This paper is a response to Chapter 16 by McNaught (2003) and
Chapter 18 by Littlejohn (2003a), from 'Reusing Online Resources: a
sustainable approach to e-learning' (Littlejohn, 2003b). These two
chapters are briefly summarised, and the points that each makes are
examined and challenged. Following on from this, the proposals
within these two chapters are re-framed in terms of issues of
information literacy and the exercise of power. This analysis
suggests that, whilst these chapters may make an important
contribution to understanding the process of reuse, they neglect
issues relating to scholarship, wisdom and personal development;
they also hide the ways in which reuse may serve to strengthen the
position of learning technologists whilst marginalising
academics.

Introduction

This paper is intended to raise issues and questions in relation
to two chapters from the book, Reusing Online Resources: a
sustainable approach to e-learning (Littlejohn, 2003b). These
chapters examine the complex contextual factors that influence
reuse and the ways in which staff development can be used to
encourage such practices (McNaught, 2003; Littlejohn, 2003a).
Rather than discuss issues in the order they arise in the texts,
the discussion within this paper has been structured around the
following two themes:

Reframing reuse as information literacy, and

Questioning the play of power around reuse.

First, however, the two chapters will be briefly summarised.
Rather than simply précis either chapter, these summaries
will draw out a select number of points for consideration and
challenge. Since such a process may appear to distort the authors'
arguments, it is important to emphasise at the outset that the
purpose of this paper is not to dismiss or devalue this work.
However, it is necessary to challenge the position of the authors
as authorities, so as to show that their chapters are
examples of petits récits (Lyotard, 1979) ? local,
personal understandings, rather than definitive accounts. By doing
so, it is then possible to offer up other little stories that can
stand alongside these offerings, valourising them by using them to
generate new perspectives, new insights (ibid).

A summary of the chapters being discussed

Identifying the complexity of factors in the sharing and reuse
of resources

McNaught's central argument (2003) is that the changes facing
reusability in education are largely educational and cultural. She
argues, moreover, that the increased calls for the sharing and
reuse of learning resources, if not handled in a collegial way, may
prevent teachers from engaging in this process. However, in spite
of recognising the complexity of the change process, McNaught
begins by assuming the goodness of reuse, explaining that her
"chapter is concerned with how to reduce the barriers and improve
the drivers". Within the chapter, there is no attempt to explore
why these forces are acting on academics. This position serves to
frame the academic ? the resistor ? as recalcitrant, as wrong.
Whilst recognising that "there are still many academics and
teachers who have not yet comfortably adopted technology in their
teaching" she goes on to speak of "the adoption issue", which
serves to present this situation as a problem to be solved.

In order to develop an understanding of the process of adoption,
McNaught reports on a survey of technology adoption. Within this,
the majority of people identified as early adopters of technology
appeared to be isolated; these individuals asserted that the
majority of staff in their institution would only use technology
when it became mainstream. On the surface, this appears to tell an
important story about managing change, and McNaught concludes that
"it is imperative that academic teachers come to see the potential
benefits that reuse offers" as a way of changing this situation.
However, although such inferences may at first appear to be
warranted by this study, it is important to consider three points
which call these conclusions into question. Firstly, academic life
involves a constant struggle to build a professional identity
(Taylor, 1999); it is only to be expected that those who wish to
distinguish themselves from their colleagues will portray their own
practice as innovative and their colleagues as less creative. Such
identity creation through questionnaire response is a well
recognised problem in social psychology (Potter & Wetherell,
1987). Secondly, Rogers' model of adoption is largely uninformative
in this case. It is tautological that the majority of individuals
in a population will only use technology once it is in the
mainstream. It is also a necessary fact of a model that describes a
population chronologically that the first quartile of users will
adopt the technology earlier than their colleagues. Unfortunately,
information about the pace of adoption, the spread of adoption
through the population (which is unlikely to be uniform) and so on
is disregarded in this model. Thirdly, within the context of the
model used for this survey, there is no attempt to explore what is
meant by 'technology' (cf. Kuutti, 1996). This lack of analysis
renders invisible the familiar technologies (language, chalk and
blackboard, overhead projectors) that have become commonplace. The
effect of this is to distort the picture by ignoring that we are
all technology users ? what is important (but unexamined in
this study) are the ways in which we use technology and the ends to
which it is put.

Fortunately, McNaught does not rely on Rogers' model for the
heart of her argument, instead discussing polarity theory as a way
of analysing this situation. This theory proposes that situations
can be described in terms of dilemmas ? problems to which there can
be no solution, only a constant state of tension. It also advocates
that these poles should be considered together, holistically. This
approach seems ideally suited to the analysis of such a rich,
complex situation. From this perspective, McNaught asserts that
there are several dilemmas that should be considered, and discusses
each in turn:

Scholarship versus cost effectiveness;

Integrated support versus piecemeal support;

Maintaining a comfort zone versus pushing the
boundaries;

Rewarding teaching innovation versus efforts on research
outputs;

Collaboration versus individualism;

Rewarding first attempts versus standards of best
practice; and

Iterative educational design versus traditional
models.

Before discussing any of these, it is important to recognise
that there are no claims about the exhaustiveness or power of this
model. McNaught acknowledges that these are, simply, "the set of
dimensions I chose". This model is not necessarily any less
powerful for being a personal account, but it must be recognised
that, within the context of this paper, the choice of dilemmas
rests on personal experience rather than any explicit theory or
body of literature.

The first of these dilemmas is used to generate a series of
questions, inviting reflection and engagement. This approach does
not continue, however. Whilst it is asserted that polarity theory
is about states of tension, several of the discussions slip into
solutions. For example, discussing integrated versus
piecemeal support, McNaught sidesteps the dilemma by asserting that
"clearly articulated functions and effective coordination between
units is the answer" ? in other words, integrated support is needed
(although this is not necessarily the same as centralised support).
Similarly, in discussing the complexity of learning, McNaught
sidesteps the 'instructivist/constructivist' divide by asserting
that what is important is "deciding whether the learning needs are
short-term and explicit, or whether a more holistic focus has been
taken." Rather than align with either of these two positions (which
are primarily about the status of knowledge, rather than about the
pragmatics of learning) it is asserted that models of reuse and
customisation are value neutral. This ignores the fact that
academics must develop an understanding of what reuse means ? and
that McNaught's own model must take a position over whether we can
instruct academics about what reuse is or whether we must help them
construct their own meanings. The existence of answers in this
section (some of which are value judgements, others of which
sideline the dilemma) calls into question whether these are,
indeed, the right poles to include in this model.

McNaught concludes by arguing ? wisely ? that "it is not useful
to allow sectors of the organisation to work without reference to
each other", and goes on to describe how these different sectors
might be aligned. However, such a conclusion does not need this
elaborate model to justify it; indeed, the power of the model is
largely left unexplored, without even a 'before and after' pair of
illustrations to demonstrate its application. Whether flawed or
not, further use of this model would clearly be of value, and it
was disappointing that its potential as a way of analysing specific
cases was not developed within the chapter.

An incremental approach to staff development in the use of
learning resources

Littlejohn (2003) opens her chapter with an exciting and
empowering assertion: "the key to effective reuse of resources lies
not in the technology, but in the creativity and imagination of
teachers". Wisely, she frames her discussion in relation to the
established history of reuse involving things like paper-based
resources. However, in spite of this holistic start, her view of
teaching appears fragmented. One of the benefits of reuse, it is
argued, might be that "tutors could spend more time devising
teaching strategies and interacting with students, rather than
focusing on content generation". This might seem alien to
academics, for whom devising teaching strategies, interacting with
students and generating content are all part of a seamless whole
(Oliver, 2002). In a study of academics' descriptions of their
practice (ibid), a strong message was that creation of
courses involves a complex interplay between one's personal sense
of the discipline, departmental politics, perceived student
interest, existing curriculum structures, the need to differentiate
this course from that offered by other institutions and the various
texts, papers and resources that could be called upon. Moreover,
the curriculum itself was described in a rich, multi-layered way:
the syllabus and 'content' (materials) were visible parts of it,
but attitudes and beliefs, departmental 'style' (the 'hidden'
curriculum) and ongoing interactions with students (the 'lived'
curriculum) all formed essential parts of this whole.
Disaggregating this into components, each treated separately,
oversimplifies this emotive art into a rational production process
? convenient for automation, but hardly the same.

Questioning the simple process of curriculum development
described in Littlejohn's study is important, because it allows us
to reframe the problem being examined. As presented, the
fundamental issue is one of acquiring and using content. In marked
contrast, the curriculum design study described above shows that
acquiring and using content are relatively minor components of much
more significant projects. Searching, acquiring, interpreting,
shaping and sharing are all parts of an holistic process of
personal development for the academic involved; they are also a way
of ordering, shaping and developing the discipline (cf. Wenger,
1998, who discusses the way in which personal trajectories through
a community of practice shape the development of that individual's
professional identity whilst also influencing the practices of the
community in a process that requires mutual negotiation). This
suggests that Littlejohn's model of development is limited as a
result of its view of curriculum design as a technical process. The
alternative is to view it as an act of scholarship (Boyer,
1990).

The case for specialised training is made, in part, in relation
to an "inconsistency in approach" of academics. It is argued that
tutors feel comfortable searching libraries and so forth for
materials for traditional courses, but tend to develop (rather than
reuse) materials for online courses represents. There is an
alternative explanation to inconsistency. Introducing new tools
into an established activity causes problems, which may lead to
patterns of work changing and with them, each individuals' sense of
professional identity (Kuutti, 1996; Wenger, 1998). In the study in
question, for example, academics were given criteria for evaluating
resources; these were not derived by them from personal experience.
In other words, reifications of other peoples' practice was imposed
upon this community, who then had to learn to adapt their own
practices to accommodate this new approach (cf. Wenger, 1998).
Moreover, this vocabulary is fixed, which stands in marked contrast
to the ongoing tinkering, development and updating inherent in
academics' curriculum work as the discipline (and their
understanding of it) changes (Oliver, 2002). It is hardly
surprising, given the unfamiliarity of this approach, that
academics were unsettled and unsure, and appeared to need
'developing'. This situation might have been avoided, however, if
the process of reuse had been approached in a different way.

The final point to be raised in relation to this chapter
concerns the scope of reuse. Littlejohn proposes that it will be
possible "to encourage the sharing and reuse of resources within
and across disciplines". However, there is considerable evidence to
suggest that cross-disciplinary sharing may be impractical (e.g.
Becher, 1989; Oliver and Conole, 2002). The meanings of terms arise
within communities of practice (Wenger, 1998); they do not
necessarily generalise across them. What this means is that the
terminology used to classify and describe resources (as well as all
the concepts described within them) will be differently interpreted
by each new community that encounters them (ibid) ? and
communities are likely to consist of groupings whose boundaries are
shaped by both institutions and disciplines. In other words,
interpretations are likely to be specific to the level of a
department, or smaller.

There are several ways in which this situation could be tackled,
and Littlejohn proposes one: the use of information professionals
such as librarians who have expertise in the re-interpretation and
explanations of such classifications from one community to another.
At least two other alternatives exist, however: to create such
descriptions for specific communities (e.g. Friesen, 2002) or else
to allow multiple descriptions to be attached to any single
resource, so that several communities can re-describe in their own
terms (Nilsson, et al., 2002). Whichever approach is
adopted, however, the issue of scope cannot be solved: resources
must be understood in relation to specific contexts, rather than
global definitions.

Discussion

Reframing reuse as information literacy

Bruce's study of information literacy (1997) starts by rejecting
behaviouristic definitions, focusing exclusively on what people do,
in favour of an alternative 'relational' model, in which the focus
is on people and their relationship to situations. Her
phenomenographic study identified seven conceptions of information
literacy (p. 110):

The information technology conception ? information literacy is
seen as using information technology for information retrieval and
communication.

The information sources conception ? information literacy is
seen as finding information.

The information process conception ? information literacy is
seen as executing a process.

The information control conception ? information literacy is
seen as controlling information.

The knowledge construction conception ? information literacy is
seen as building up a personal knowledge base in a new area of
interest.

The knowledge extension conception ? information literacy is
seen as working with knowledge and personal perspectives adopted in
such a way that novel insights are gained.

The wisdom conception ? information literacy is seen as using
information wisely for the benefit of others.

Within this mapping of conceptions, an order was discerned. The
first conceptions have information technology as their focus, with
information use as a peripheral component; the latter have
information use as their focus, with information technology as a
peripheral component. This mapping is useful in highlighting some
of the preconceptions within these chapters and in arguing that, in
spite of their emphasis on context, they do not go far enough to
explain how reuse can be enabled.

McNaught, for example, recognises the complexity of standards
documents and the process of metadata coding. Coding tools, she
argues, may solve this problem. Similarly, Littlejohn proposes a
centralised repository for resources as a solution to the lack of
high quality electronic resources for staff development. She goes
on to describe how resources can be aggregated to form lessons ? a
description that almost suggests materials development has replaced
pedagogy. These, however, are technology-focused responses; they
neglect the way in which these problems are experienced by
academics (a point emphasised throughout Bruce's phenomenographic
study). What do the various terms mean to the academics who code
resources, or to those who attempt to retrieve them? And to what
ends are they to be put?

These questions are not simply abstract or philosophical; they
also have significant implications at a practical level. For
example, a study in which the software tool media adviser
was used by academics to describe their teaching practices showed
that even commonplace terms like 'lecture' had complex, variable
meanings (Oliver & Conole, 2002). There was no single,
'correct' interpretation of the term; instead, its used varied
depending on the disciplinary context, the year of students taught,
the number of students present, the relationship of this session to
others in the programme and so on. Not only did the meaning of the
term vary from person to person, even within the same course team,
it also changed for each person depending on the context in which
it was used. Thus it proved impossible to provide a precise
definition for the term; its meaning was determined in relation to
other terms (such as 'tutorial', 'seminar', etc.) and a
taken-for-granted context, as well as covering an ambiguous variety
of actual practices. If the meaning of such familiar terms is
inherently ambiguous, it is unlikely that new terms (such as
'virtual seminar') will mean the same in different contexts.

Another implication of this new perspective is to re-cast the
developmental process academics may need to engage with in order to
reuse materials. Littlejohn proposes a three-stage model, beginning
at a basic level (discovering, searching and evaluating), moving to
intermediate (supporting resource authoring) and moving to an
advanced level (integration and contextualisation of resources).
Such a model is rational and functional, but sits uneasily
alongside the study of curriculum development practice (Oliver,
2002) which suggests that academics are already well versed in
integration and contextualisation and are happy to author materials
(within the various media with which they are familiar). Where they
have no prior experience is in the browsing of specialist
repositories such as the one proposed. In other words, the study of
curriculum practice suggests that the 'levels' of development may
need to be reversed ? what is 'basic' to them may be integrating
resources to form curricula, whilst where they are least likely to
be confident is in this new form of information searching.

There are, thus, two possible directions in which development
might be required ? and the reason for this is that each study has
adopted a different perspective when viewing this situation.
Littlejohn's model can be related to the first four kinds of
information literacy described by Bruce (using information
technology through to information control). The study of curriculum
practice starts from purposes, neglecting details of method, and
thus relates to the latter three kinds of information literacy
(building up a personal knowledge base, developing new knowledge
and using knowledge wisely). Each neglects the alternative
perspectives, which may make it appear that the academics described
need further development in those areas. Whether these academics
need to learn curriculum skills or technical skills is impossible
to determine from either study, because of the presuppositions (the
focus) of each. Instead, what is needed is new research that draws
upon the whole range of described perspectives (or reconciling the
existing research). This would allow a more considered, responsive
analysis of the situation ? one that is more likely to identify
where academics' experiences actually lead to problems.

Thus solutions focused primarily on the technical questions
surrounding re-use are unlikely to radically transform the current
situation. For progress to be made, a more holistic approach must
be adopted, in which personal understandings and development are
valued alongside technical 'solutions' which may otherwise simply
replace old problems with new ones.

Questioning the play of power around reuse

It has been observed that many educational initiatives in recent
decades have served to disempower academics, ostensibly in order to
empower students but often in ways which are suspiciously
favourable towards governmental concerns and industrial agendas
(Holley & Oliver, 2000). Such changes have sparked serious
fears amongst academics who feel alienated by this 'automation' of
teaching (Noble, 1998). Given these fears, it is important to
question the way in which power is shifting around the process of
reuse.

McNaught, considering the tension between maintaining a comfort
zone and pushing boundaries, suggests that "the culture of the
organisation needs to be able to embrace change while offering
staff opportunities to manage their own levels of comfort with the
change". It is interesting to examine this assertion in relation to
Barnett's discussion of different types of criticality (1997).
Here, he differentiates between being allowed to find the optimal
path within a situation and the right to question why the situation
has arisen in the first place. The former, he argues, is
representative of the kinds of critical thinking valued by
industry; the latter he links to the critical role universities
traditionally take. Clearly, in McNaught's solution to this
dilemma, academics are positioned within the former, more
restricted, kind of criticality. There is no indication at any
point that staff might be allowed to challenge, resist or abstain
from the change. The voice of academics is clearly subsumed here by
the centralised imperatives of 'the organisation'.

Littlejohn positions not only academics but also advocates of
reuse in the same position. Like McNaught, Littlejohn accepts
certain external imperatives that then shape her response to the
'issue' of reuse. She argues that "there are several compelling
reasons [why teachers should share their resources], many of which
lie within the economics of education". She goes on to discuss how
"to achieve this within current economic restrictions". Before the
discussion has begun, the opportunity to challenge these
presuppositions has been closed down. What if one were to reject
the idea that education should be governed by economics? This
notion is hardly heretical; indeed, the current economic
imperatives for reuse only seems to have come to the fore in UK
government policy in an appendix to the Dearing report ? a policy
which advocated the re-framing of Higher Education as a service
contributing to global economic competitiveness (NCIHE, 1997).
There is an alternative: to view universities as a social good.
This perspective has been pitted against economic arguments, with
each in turn gaining the upper hand and then losing it again, for
well over a century (Taylor, 1999). However, no matter what
academics ? or advocates of reuse, for that matter ? think that
Higher Education should be for, the argument within these chapters
has been drawn out of the realm of values or ideals and into the
world of fiscal and human resources. Those who question whether
allocated resource should drive change, arguing instead that such
resources might be granted to worthy projects as needed, are
immediately rendered heretics.

Another critical perspective on this process of change can be
drawn from the work of Freire (1970). Freire describes a situation
wherein individuals who are oppressed, seeking to escape from their
situation, seek to emulate their oppressors. They act as the
oppressors do, appropriating their ideas and practices; they thus
come to identify with the oppressors, rather than with the
oppressed (cf. Wenger, 1998, and his discussion of the way in which
individuals identify with communities whose practice they choose to
adopt, rather than solely in terms of the community they originate
from). McNaught describes a situation that is apparently benign,
but which, when viewed from this perspective, could be
reinterpreted as an exercise of oppressive power. A learning
technology mentor programme was set up in which academics learnt
the skills involved in designing and implementing online courses
and then promoted and supported similar activities within their own
departments. The purpose of this "was to achieve widespread
adoption of online learning as part of effective a change in the
culture of academic work". Unless such a change arose as the
spontaneous desire of the academics involved, it seems likely that
participation in this process must have arisen as a response to
external pressures. Thus, rather than experiencing self-determined
development, these individuals were inducted into the practices and
values of communities that stand to benefit from these changes (as
will be argued below). They were then sent back to spread the word
amongst their fellow oppressed. Such use of power can clearly be
effective; its elegance has to be admired; to be sure that it was
not oppressive, however, it is imperative that the principles that
led to its operation be questioned.

Littlejohn describes a similar incident. She recounts that
"there was a tendency amongst tutors to seek out large resources
which fulfilled a number of objectives [?] however, it was found
that by engaging tutors in discussions about the advantages and
disadvantages in using resources of different granularities, they
were better at making decisions about which materials were most
appropriate for reuse." There is a clear presupposition here that
the technology specialists know something that the academics do
not. There is no recognition that the reverse might equally be
true. The criteria for 'better' decisions are determined by the
specialists, and academics are taught to conform, in spite of
evidence to suggest that these new practices are in marked contrast
to tried and tested approaches ? such as the selection of a
textbook as a way of shaping a course (Oliver, 2002). Such one-way
development (as opposed to mutual development) echoes the
exhortations of Merrill (2001), who argues that:

Too often instructional designers leave these
important what-to-teach decisions to so-called
subject-matter-experts (SMEs). Often a SME knows how to perform the
task that is the goal of instruction but is unaware of the
knowledge components that are required to acquire this knowledge
and skill. A primary role of the instructional designer is to
determine these granular knowledge components and their
sequence

This process of devaluing the expertise of academics is a
worrying trend. It echoes the ways Lisewski & Joyce (2003)
describe learning technologists as seeking to establish their own
power by serving the dominant ideology of managerialism, rather
than by developing their own specialist expertise, worthy of
respect in its own right. Taking educational processes out of the
hands of academics and placing them under the purview of management
serves to weaken academics' sense of professional identity by
carving off areas of responsibility. It also allows learning
technologists to grow in importance whilst academics are
marginalised. Such a trend seems inherent in the model of staff
development proposed by Littlejohn. In this, the arrival of a new
technology unsettles existing staff practices; deficient skills are
identified and named; training is then created and applied to staff
who are framed as lacking in relation to these new practices.
Positioning this process as something new and unfamiliar, rather
than just another part of their existing practice, serves to split
e-learning off from 'normal' academic work (Oliver & Dempster,
2003) ? this simply reinforces the 'mystery' of e-learning,
allowing a 'priesthood' to arise who have a powerful gatekeeper
role, which involves them revealing these secrets to the
uninitiated.

Such tendencies are recognised within the literature on
knowledge management. Wenger (1998) outlines how 'economies of
meaning' can arise, in which dominant communities coerce others
into adopting their understanding of a situation. The local
understandings of other communities are marginalised, sidelined;
the sanctioned 'truth' is the understanding held by those in power.
Farrell (2001) explores how this process operates, focusing on
texts that attempt to define standards or best practice. These are
argued to standardise what 'counts' as knowledge, sanctioning some
beliefs and rendering others heretical. This process is insidious.
Defining something as 'best practice', for example, serves to
impose external authority whilst obscuring its identity: external
values are held up as an ideal, but the authors of the text are not
seen to be the ones who proposed them. Thus the demands of
authorities (government, management, etc.) are no longer seem as
impositions ? instead, "they seem transparently natural and right,
just 'best practice'" (p. 211). Hard at work throughout this
process are 'discourse technologists' ? "people whose job it is to
intervene in the textual practices of work at local sites in order
to shift discursive practice to standardised global discourses" (p.
211). Although this role is implicated in the process of imposing
dominant meanings, it need not simply serve to impose the values of
management. Instead, discourse technologists can act to create a
'pedagogic space' (p. 212) in which structures of power can be
unsettled. However, such a process requires negotiation, not
instruction; it must be a dialogue, not simply indoctrination. Such
space for dialogue can be hugely powerful, providing valuable new
insights into the process being described (Wenger, 1998); it is
also a pre-requisite for the kind of critical, reflective practice
that it is argued that learning technologists ought to aspire
towards (Lisewski & Joyce, 2003). However, such space that
seems worryingly absent from exhortations such as, "encouraging
resource sharing is complex. It is perhaps one of the major
challenges currently facing learning technologists" (Littlejohn,
2003a).

This uncritical link between learning technologists and
management is further evidenced elsewhere in these chapters. In the
closing section of her chapter, for example, McNaught asks, "how
can an organisation decide if it is within the zone of effective
change?" She goes on to suggest that one part of this decision
might involve tasks such as SWOT analyses. This discussion is
particularly telling. Organisations do not do SWOT analyses;
individuals do. However, the use of the label 'organisation' acts
to naturalise the fact that specific individuals take decisions on
behalf of the institution. It is rendered natural, obvious, that
someone in a senior position should undertake such a task, in the
same way that it is only natural that a senior individual should
then devise a policy to respond to this exercise, and that a
similar individual should use McNaught's model to represent their
institution, since these models "can be a powerful focus for
celebrating and realigning change". Such 'natural' assumptions
validate the fears identified elsewhere in the literature (e.g.
Holley & Oliver, 2000; Noble, 1998): that academics' identities
are being re-conceived on their behalf, without their input. In
fact, this is not necessarily the case; such analyses could be
undertaken in an open, consultative way. However, for any one
individual to act in this way on the behalf of others places them
in a position of power over their colleagues. Unless this forms
part of an open process, their beliefs will shape future practice,
their values will determine the professional identities of their
colleagues. McNaught does advocate at the outset that such change
be undertaken in a collegial way ? but there are no echoes of this
warning in the advice given about advancing such changes at the end
of the chapter.

Conclusions

McNaught and Littlejohn set out in their chapters to propose
ways of dealing with the complexities of context and personal
development in relation to reuse. This paper has provided a
critique of these proposals, re-framing them in terms of
information literacy and the use of power. The purpose of this
critique is not to dismiss the proposals offered in the initial
chapters, but to generate new insights and opportunities that can
be used to extend our understanding of the phenomena being
described.

Reconsidering the chapters in the light of information literacy
research showed that these proposals do not encompass the range of
ways in which staff may experience the problem of reuse. Focusing
on technical or process issues may make for a tractable, solvable
set of problems, but it fails to take account of the ways in which
academics' use of resources contributes to their personal
development and the development of their discipline. What is
required is either new research or the reconciling of currently
disparate bodies of work that each focus on one end of Bruce's
continuum of descriptions of information literacy. Without such an
holistic account, the only solutions that can be proposed will
necessarily be piecemeal. Thus these chapters may represent an
important contribution to our understanding of part of this
process, but they should not be seen as telling the whole
story.

Examining this process in terms of the exercise of power reveals
the tendency for reuse to marginalise academics. The process judges
practice in terms of values esteemed by managerialism: efficiency,
control and transparency. The complex, tacit expertise of academics
in designing curricula (and, through this scholarly process,
developing both themselves and their disciplines) is ignored. It
might be possible to set this aside as an innocent oversight, were
it not for the way in which these processes seem to benefit the
same groups who are the strongest advocates of reuse. Learning
technologists in particular seem poised to wrestle away from
academics responsibilities for part (if not all) of the curriculum
design process, legitimating their importance and strengthening
their currently precarious role within universities. Given that we
as learning technologists stand to gain whilst others lose from
this process, it is all the more important that we are cautious and
circumspect in the way in which we encourage reuse. If values,
descriptions and practices are imposed, it would be fair to
criticise this process as one that serves our own interests; only
by approaching this issue in an open way, encouraging dialogue and
valuing the different voices and values of academics, can we hope
to avoid the charge of serving our own ends through advocacy of
reuse.

Finally, it is important to recognise that the points made above
are not unique to these chapters, or indeed to the topic of reuse.
All educational change involves the development of new literacies
and the exercise of power. What is important from this critique is
to recognise the value-laden, disruptive and threatening nature of
such processes. In both research and practice, we must seek to
examine such processes, holding these issues in mind so that we are
sensitised to their influence on the ways in which we work. Since
we cannot work without disrupting literacies or exercising power,
we should at least recognise that this is what we are doing. We
should also recognise that those we influence may need time and
experience to understand these new approaches, become fluent with
them and be able to come to terms with the way that their
identities have been re-formed by them. Training alone will not
resolve these transformative anxieties; however, careful and
respectful collaboration and dialogue with academics might.

Littlejohn, A. (2003a) An incremental approach to staff
development in the use of learning resources. In Littlejohn, A.
(Ed), Reusing Online Resources: a sustainable approach to
e-learning. London: Kogan Page.